The dream: To prevent anything like the Atlanta Public Schools cheating scandal from happening again.
The means: A new nonprofit that aims to “free our teachers from the educational inequality faced serving in low-income areas.”
The irony: It’s all being spearheaded by attorneys for two of the 11 convicted APS educators.
“The DA’s office, their whole big to-do (during the trial) was about the children,” one of the attorneys, Gerald Griggs, said Monday. “We’re going to wrap our arms around those children and not just talk about it.”
The website for Free Our Teachers, Inc., went live Monday, one day after Griggs, the defense attorney for convicted elementary school educator Angela Williamson, announced its formation while speaking at Elizabeth Baptist Church. Griggs said the group is already incorporated but is awaiting certification as a 501(c)4 nonprofit, which means it will be able to lobby in addition to the more traditional charity work associated with 501(c)3s.
Free Our Teachers’ mission, Griggs said, will be to take on “the failure of No Child Left Behind” by advocating for change and raising money to provide teachers of underprivileged students with “food banks, workbooks, textbooks, anything that a child needs to close the achievement gap.”
Griggs is joined in leading the organization by Annette Green, the attorney for cheating case defendant Shani Robinson, as well as two local businesswomen, Patrice Williams and Arlissa Jennings.
The larger mission is the primary focus of Free Our Teachers, Griggs said, but the group's website doesn't shy away from advocating for the convicted APS educators. The site includes a petition asking the appeals court to overturn all 11 convictions, as well as brief first-person posts describing Robinson and Williamson's stories.
The site also includes this passage: “FOT seeks to free our teachers from the educational inequality faced serving in low-income areas. The teacher should not be the blame for their student’s underperformance. FOT seeks to free our teachers from the injustices within these communities. Our teachers should not be faced with criminal consequences for the problems of the community.”
Griggs said Free Our Teachers has started its efforts by spreading awareness at local houses of faith. He said he hopes the organization will eventually have a national reach.
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